


Heart on My Wrist

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Demonstuck [45]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Demonstuck, Gen, Panic Attacks, basically me rambling about trauma and sexuality for three thousand words, nonbinary characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 20:14:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18630505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: Gale meets a new hunter, who's got a couple surprises for them and maybe some knowledge that'll give them some more info about themself.





	Heart on My Wrist

One of the big things that therapy sessions with Rose have taught you is how to recognize that you're gearing up for a panic attack. It's kind of funny, really, because you thought you already knew that; it's not like it's something you can really miss, right? 

Apparently it is, though. Kind of. Early warning—realizing that your chest is getting tight and you're having trouble focusing, that your hands are already twisting together in the prelude to slinging magic at whatever's going to try to hurt you—that can help you keep yourself from tipping into full-blown meltdowns. Sometimes. 

...and sometimes you just have to retreat out of the safehouse kitchen and into whatever room the house decides to put past the door that usually leads into the hall. This time, it's the living room. Which works. The living room works. Anything that doesn't have a—a _gaggle_ of hunters calmly discussing what the best way to kill people who turn into threats works. 

Your hands are shaking. _Everything_ is shaking, but your hands are what catches your attention purely because they're shedding iridescent sparks with the movement, magic that glitters and cycles through the spectrum as each particle fades. You're not really sure what that's going to do, but it's probably not good. 

_Breathe, Gale. Breathe._

Easy to say. Kind of. Easy to think, anyway. 

The kids must have been the last ones in here—you're guessing Davepeta and either Liv or Seb, by the selection of blankets scattered across the couch. When you sit/fall down in the heap and grab at the closest one, it's the bunny-eared blanket that John bought for Seb, so you're pretty sure it's a good guess. 

Pulling the blanket over your head probably makes you look really, really stupid. It also makes you feel safer, somehow—and it's not like anyone's going to see, right? And if you're really worried about being noticed, you could just...

When you go to make the short, sharp gestures that your mind connects with _not being seen_ , your hands jerk and tremble, and you remember that you're kind of still in the middle of a panic attack. Maybe you should deal with that first. 

There's a clock on the wall, one with a second hand. It's the second hand that you focus on, despite your brain's attempt to keep your attention darting around the room for whoever or whatever you _need_ to know about. You can't really push the fresh memory of the hunters in the kitchen out of your head (talking about killing demons killing vampires killing _you_ ) so you don't even try. 

What you do is you count the seconds. For the first hundred you _just_ count, groups of five that add up to ten that add up to something more substantial really fast. At one hundred, your breathing's slowed enough that you can synch it to your count: seven in, hold for six, seven out.

You vaguely worry that adding two to the inhale is going to make the pattern Dirk taught you ineffective somehow. Like every other time you've done this, that worry kicks in somewhere around three hundred; it's kind of how you know that you're calm enough to stop. 

When you blink and look away from the clock, down at your hands, you realize that you've slipped the bracelets Hal and Dave bought you last June off to fiddle with them. Which makes sense; you know that they're comforting, the visible reminder that you're safe enough to wear your identities on your sleeve. The nonbinary one is starting to wear through, though...even with a quick glance you can see a little tear in the yielding rubber, like you caught it on something sharp. 

(Knife. Sword. _Shit_.) 

You may not be totally recovered from your dip into panic, because even the thought of something sharp so close to arteries makes you flinch. The sound of the door to the kitchen opening makes you _jump_ , and drop both the bracelets in favor of bringing your arms up, crossed over your chest with your fists clenched at your shoulders. It's guarding, and it's redirecting; anything that anyone throws at you, whether it be physical or magic, is going to _bounce._

However, the woman who just stepped through the door probably isn't going to attack you. (Probably.) She's one of the hunters from the kitchen, the one who kept pointing out all the holes in everyone else's logic that you weren't sure you were allowed to say you'd noticed. You're having trouble actually focusing on her as a whole; your brain still won't stop fixing on individual aspects—straight red hair pulled back in a ponytail that's got wisps escaping, knife with a carved antler handle strapped to her belt, blue jeans with ragged hems and rips high up on the thighs. 

You get stuck on the rips, for some weird reason. How would she even do that accidentally on a pair of jeans that tight? Especially without tearing open the skin beneath it...

"You okay?" The woman raises an eyebrow and leans down to retrieve the bracelets you kind of threw across the room, glancing down at them with a quick smile. She doesn't step closer yet, maybe because you're still sitting here with a bunny blanket over your head and your arms crossed over your chest like some kind of dangerous idiot. "Kinda looked like you were having a bad second there before you noped out." 

"Uh..." Should you deny that? It feels like you should. Then again, what would Rose say about that feeling? "I—yeah. Sort of. Uh, sorry?" 

"Hey, you're good." She shrugs and takes exactly three steps towards you, holding out your bracelets and waiting for you to react to that. "Bad combat experience?" 

"...not quite." Okay, you actually do need to take those out of her hands. You _have_ to...even if you're still noticeably shaky. Well, you guess you can keep fidgeting with these now that you have them back... "I, uh...I'm. Not quite a hunter, I guess? Closer to what they'd _be_ hunting." 

(Okay, you've been adopted as a Strider for more than a year now, you can definitely say fuck.)

( _Fuck_!) 

The bracelet in your hands snaps on the weak spot you noticed before as you twist it just a little harder, the elastic snapping out of your hands like a rubber band. You fail to grab it (or think of some gesture to fix what you just did) and it flies straight for the redhead's face like you meant to do it that way. 

Her hand comes up and snatches it out of the air. You didn't even have time to blink, and she reacted perfectly. 

"I guess I should have guessed you weren't a hunter," she says while you're still processing the fact that she's probably not human (and that you didn't even realize.) "Can I sit down?" 

"Uh. It's, um...not my couch." 

"You're sitting on it. Possession is nine tenths of the law." 

Why are hunters like this. Or is it just the ones that're part demon? Does she realize that you're pretty close to just pulling up a shield around yourself and doing your best to just disappear? 

Probably not, but she seems to understand that you're not that great with words right now, because when you nod she takes it as permission to sit beside you, twisting the broken bracelet in her hands thoughtfully. 

"My name's Ava." 

"...Gale." 

"So...wind demon?" 

"I—no. No." The ace pride bracelet slips out of your hands; Ava catches it before it hits the floor, spooky-fast again. "Human, just...just magic." 

"Oh, sorry." She makes a face and hands your bracelets back. Again. "This place scrambles me a little bit." 

"The safehouse?" 

"Yeah, if you wanna call it that. I can hear it in the back of my head, you know?" 

"...you're a telepath?" Huh. There's been telepaths here before; none of them have managed to make direct mental contact with the house. (You still haven't told anyone that sometimes you can feel it, though. Just a curious pressure in the back of your mind, like it wants to feel out your powers and decide how dangerous they might be.) 

(...maybe you worry about your own danger level a little too much.) 

But Ava's shaking her head, her ponytail whipping halfway around. "Nah, I'm a vitality demon." 

Oh. _Shit_. That brings one type of demon to mind, and it's one that has you tensing up and twisting the bracelets in your hand so hard that you can feel the ace pride one getting ready to snap. 

Ava's eyes go wide, and you realize that they're both the same color as your left one, a specific and familiar shade of hazel. "What? What's wrong?" 

"You—" Oh for the love of all that's holy, you should be able to talk. She's not touching you. She's not _going_ to touch you. If she touches you, you can make her stop, you know you can. 

(Except you're terrified that she'll be able to make you not _want_ to make her stop.) 

And she's still looking at you. And literally the only way you can think of that you'll be able to continue this conversation without doing something horrible is to pull the blanket that's still draped over your head down to cover your face, which is undeniably stupid. 

The stupidity does not stop you from doing it. And sure enough, the soft fluffy barrier is enough that you can force out, "Like. A succubus?" 

Ava is silent for a couple seconds. You think it's only a couple seconds. It feels like longer. Then, "Nope. Other side of the coin—I feed life force to others. I mean, I _can_ drain it, but that's a self defense thing." 

"...oh."

"Is it the energy-stealing thing that messes you up, or the sex thing?" 

You cannot possibly uncover your face. "It's, uh. It's. The sex thing." Your face is _burning._

"Ah." 

"...sorry." 

"Kid, you're one hundred percent fine...does it help if I tell you that most succubi aren't actually going to jump on you and make you do anything? One of my partners is an incubus and she's really careful, I promise." 

You're pretty sure that the other two unfamiliar hunters in the kitchen are the partners Ava's talking about. That does not help at all. In another minute she's going to say something else, make it worse, bring you that much closer to panicking and doing something with your powers that you can't take back—

Wait, you know how to handle this. Really. You do. 

You yank the blanket down around your shoulders, not looking up at Ava's face in the process, and cover your ears, your eyes, your mouth with both hands. It only takes a second, and when she opens her mouth to ask you what the heck your doing (or whatever else it is she was about to say) you can't hear a thing, or read even the most obvious words off her lips. 

She's not actually affected by the magic, of course. It's a definite improvement from what you used to use to give yourself silence; this is almost like a filter, catching what'll trigger your fear reflex and keeping it from reaching you. It's still not perfect—you're already worrying about what you're missing from Ava, what crucial cues are going to slip by you—but it's _better._

Back to the counting and the breathing. Try not to flinch if you see her move, of course. Not that she does that; you can sense her going still next to you, waiting patiently to see what you're going to do next. 

(Why do you not like that idea? You're not going to do anything that she'll take offense to...right?) 

(Stop thinking about it. Don't look at her. Just...calm down.) 

"Gale?" _Apparently_ , your filter catches the sound of the door opening again, but not that of D saying your name. You still flinch. "Aw, fuck—you okay, kiddo? What happened?" 

_Why_ do people keep asking if you're okay? Is the answer not obvious right now? You're not even going to give him an answer. Well, unless groaning and pulling the blanket up over your head again is an answer. It might be one. 

"...okay then, I'm gonna take that as a 'no' on the first question. Wanna give me some hints on the second?" 

"My fault," Ava steps in before you can even start thinking about the mental effort needed to give D what he wants. "I pushed them a little past their comfort zone—it is them, right? I saw your bracelet—" 

"Them." You can confirm that, at least. 

"Great—remind me to have Kennedy give you the website he got my charms from, okay? They do pronoun ones, pride ones, all kinds; it makes things easier sometimes when you can just have that shit displayed. Here,.check this out." 

She still doesn't touch you, just drops something that jingles in your lap, as D sits down on the other side next to you. Curiosity has never been your main motivator, but in this specific situation it's enough to get you to pull the blanket down a little and scoop up the jingly thing. 

It's a bracelet, one with a thick base chain and a handful of charms spaced around it. The noise it made was a combination of a tiny silver bell and the actual charms; you identify the round nonbinary one immediately, but have to actually read the one next to it, a double-sided disc that says _she/her_ on one side and _they/them_ on the other. There's two hearts, one that says _Kennedy_ and one that says _Diane_ , and you abruptly realize that when she says partners, she means it in more than just a working sense. 

You turn the bracelet to check the last couple charms, and see the heart. Four stripes, black-white-purple-grey, and all the individual things you know make sense right up until you add this one in. Incubus, partners, that's fine but how, how the _fuck_ can any of that fit in with being asexual? How can she even _want_ to be in a relationship? Isn't not wanting that _part_ of—

"Uh-oh," D mumbles, reaching over and lifting the bracelet safely out of your hands a heartbeat before your fingers tingle and arc with bright green sparks. "Gale—" 

"You're _ace_?" D is one of the few hunters that you know isn't going to get irritated with you for ignoring him, talking over him for just a moment; you can put your attention squarely on Ava. "That's—you said—" 

She just blinks at you as you struggle for words and for control over the way your hands want to bleed out magic whenever you move them even a little. You solve the latter problem by twisting your fingers together in your lap, and just kind of accept that there's not really a fix for the former, other than to keep trying. 

"You—Kennedy, he's your, your boyfriend?" 

"We're working on the whole actually-getting-married thing, but yeah, until him and Diane sit down and let _me_ plan it, boyfriend works!" 

"But—" D has the bracelet; you half turn, hold your hand to him palm-up and twist your wrist as you close your fingers around a handful of chain and charms that slips out of his grip before he can react. The ace pride charm is the one that ends up on top when you hold it out to Ava, of course. 

She stares at you for a moment, and you can't tell if that's confusion or offense on her face. Then she reaches across and very gently gathers up the bracelet, just barely letting her fingers graze yours. You can't believe that she doesn't jerk away when more greenish sparks leap from you to her; you don't think they hurt her but she _has_ to notice that, even if she doesn't look away from your face she's still a hunter and hunters only survive by noticing things. But she keeps moving slow and careful, through the motions of leaning back and looking down to clasp the chain around her wrist again. 

Well, she tries to. You watch her fumble with it for a couple seconds and then you snap your fingers as quietly as you can manage, sending a little twist of power into the little metal catch. As soon as you do Ava looks up at you again. 

You struggle to not tense up, whatever happens. All that happens is that she smiles at you. 

"You maybe need the one with the green stripe too, huh?" Ava taps your wrist, the rubber bracelet that you slipped back on at some point. "...I think the green's the aro one, anyway. Damn, I can't remember them all..." 

"Aro. Arrow?" You don't know what she's talking about. You feel like you should, but...

"Aromantic." 

"I—I don't—" The lie gets stuck halfway; you do know what that means, if only by context clues and etymological similarity. You already had to have _asexual_ explained to you before you could have the stunned moment of realization that there's a word for that, don't make her spell this out for you too. _A-_ means _no, not_ just the same as it does in _asexual_ , and it's not like _-romantic_ is any less obvious in meaning. "No, I, um—no." 

"No?" Ava's head tilts and you're pretty sure that she'll leave the topic there, but D's arm wraps around your shoulders like a promise that he'll _make_ her stop if she doesn't on her own, and for some stupid ridiculous reason you don't stop talking. 

"It's not—uh, that's not a thing, right? It's just me, I'm not—there's not a, a box, like for the ace thing or the nonbinary thing, it's not that... _easy._ " 

It can't be that easy. It's _never_ as easy as just turning another page of a nonexistent pride dictionary and finding something that tells you that no, this isn't something about you that's irreparably broken, it's just something that you are. You can't even start to hope that it'd ever be this easy. It can't be. 

D and Ava exchange a look past you. Then Ava shifts to dig around in her pocket, coming up with a permanent marker and reaching for your hand. When you obediently hold it out to her, she starts scribbling letters across the back of your hand in small, neat print. 

"Uh..." 

"It's just a couple websites, don't worry...aroace isn't exactly my wheelhouse, you know? Hell, I'm kind of on the other side of the spectrum for half of it—polyam ace is totally different. Kind of." She flips your hand over, writes for another second, and then lets you go with another warm smile. "Kind of the same, though." 

"...uh. Kind of." 

"Hope that helps, kiddo." Ava pats your shoulder and gets to her feet, nodding at D. "Want me to make your excuses?" 

"Nah, you can just tell 'em I'm dealing with family shit." D squeezes you gently enough that it feels calming rather than confining, adjusting the blanket you're still using as a hood so he can check on your face. "You got Strider authority 'til we're good in here." 

"Like I don't always." The demon snorts and leans down to kiss D's forehead; you _feel_ the spark that passes from her to him, almost-not-quite _see_ it. As she steps back through the door to the kitchen, you can feel the magic she's left bleed through D and into you. 

It's...it's relaxing. Reassuring. Like a warm promise that you're fine, you'll be fine, you'll find words for the parts of yourself that you haven't named yet, and learn to be sure of the names of the parts that you have. 

For this moment at least, you believe that that feeling is trustworthy.


End file.
